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from NewsLink, Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring 2000
You can build the house of your dreams in America today, provided you have the money. Home theatre? Heated driveway? State-of-the-second electronic system? Not a problem. But don't ask your contractor to install the toilet you really want. He'll tell you he has to install a model that flushes 1.6 gallon of water at a time, and no more. It's the law of the land. Plumbers who disobey face hefty fines.In the 1980s the 3.5 gallon model was the standard, with some American homes containing older models that used five to seven gallons per flush. The 3.5ers are the ones most people still think of when they think of American toilets.
That changed in 1992 with the passage of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. This federal mandate decreed that starting in 1994, toilets installed in American homes must be limited to 1.6 gallons per flush. Showerheads must limit water usage to 2.5 gallons per minute.
The result has been on-going consumer angst. Consumers say the new “low-flow” models clog. They require multi-flushing. And people who live on hills complain they can't get enough power from the 1.6ers to do the job.
The reason given for the law is water conservation. Estimates used to bolster passage of the 1992 federal mandate predicted 15% savings of interior, residential water use through 1.6ers alone. Proponents now claim the mandate is saving the average household about 30 gallons of water per day or about 11,000 gallons per year through so-called “toilet rebates” (water saved) and showerhead flow regulation. To environmentalists, that's good news.
To Congressman Joe Knollenberg (R-MI), it's not good news. The Founding Fathers, he argues, never meant for government to be intruding into America's bathrooms. “Regulating the size of America's flush is none of Washington's business. A one-size-fits all federal standard is inappropriate and overreaching.” In response to what he says were thousands of calls, faxes, letters and emails to his office complaining about the low-flow toilets, Knollenberg filed HR-623, the Plumbing Standard Improvement Act., which would have removed the federal mandate on toilet size and would have allowed consumers to choose the best product for their needs.
During summer 1999, the House Commerce Committee Energy and Power Subcommittee held hearings on HR-623. David Goike, speaking for the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute and on behalf of low-flow toilets, observed that before the federal regulations, product manufacturers, distributors and installers had to meet a patchwork of state and local regulations. This meant they had to expend resources on different products, instead of developing better ones. Now this is not happening.
Goike urged Congress to keep an active role concerning the broad issues of water conservation and plumbing products. “Congress,” he said, should “foster and nurture a comprehensive review of water supplies and water use – to create a national water policy.”
On May 15, 2000, the Energy and Power Subcommittee voted against HR-623. Knollenberg is not giving up, however. His office says he is now assessing options to determine how he will proceed.
What options do consumers have?
There is growing demand for used 3.5ers. It is not uncommon for consumers to scavenge salvage yards and second-hand outlets in search of 3.5ers to use either whole (self-installed) or as replacement parts to keep Old Faithful working.
Some consumers are resorting to borderline civil disobedience. They are bringing 3.5ers into the U.S. from Canada. You can still buy a 3.5er there. Indeed many of those are manufactured in the U.S.and shipped (legally) to Canada. Americans are crossing the border, making their purchase and driving back home. Installation, of course, is another matter.
Real water conservation
A more fundamental issue is water consumption. Should regulation or the marketplace determine water consumption? According to the Cato Institute, government keeps the price of water artificially low. On a national basis, it is priced at about half of what it should be. The result – unsurprisingly – is that people consume too much water. As often happens, one regulation (fixing the price of water below the market price) leads to another (1.6 gallon flushes).
In the West, farmers receive subsidized water for irrigation purposes priced at about 10 cents per 1,000 gallons. Such generous irrigation at cheap cost makes all the water used in toilets, showers, washing machines and even outdoor sprinklers pale in comparison.
When it comes to water conservation, the best solution is to introduce market forces and let the price of water go up. That way, consumers can regulate consumption themselves, deciding, perhaps, to give up a greener lawn for a more forceful flush. If there are environmental reasons for discouraging water consumption, government should welcome a rise in the price of water, subsidizing, as necessary, low-income households for which this involves a hardship.
As for America's bathrooms, the market works best, low-flow or no.
NewsLink is the quarterly newsletter of the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research at Suffolk University. © 1996-2003. All rights reserved.
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